Yeah it sounds like a really bad idea now that more owners are getting vocal about not wanting it and the players obviously indicating they have no interest. Maybe in 2016 then or whenever the players are ready to make more money.

Will they also release the date when green bay loses in the first round of the playoffs?

clownsfan says:May 20, 2014 12:50 PM

Smartest move the NFL has made in a while. Now just table the London talk, ease up on pot, move the draft back where it belongs and replace Goodell. Get it? Got it? Good.

GO BROWNS!!

weepingjebus says:May 20, 2014 12:54 PM

On one hand, it’s a terrible idea that nobody wants and that would only dilute all the other playoff games. On the other hand, it greatly increases the likelihood of Peyton Manning getting “upset” at home by some 7-9 team, during which he glares at teammates and barks complaints into the owner’s box phone line.

I don’t understand how everybody thinks this is going to dilute the playoffs. There was 5 teams last year that were above a winning record that didn’t make the playoffs. The big thing that needs to be changed is that if you win your division you get a home playoff game. It seems like everyone has forgot the seahawks beating the saints a couple years ago when the saints should have been the higher seed.

justintuckrule says:May 20, 2014 1:17 PM

Translation….Jerry Jones spoke in favor of it. The other owners said to themselves, “wait, if he’s in favor of it, it must suck”, and then they “tabled it”.

If your team isn’t good enough the way it stands now, they don’t belong in the playoffs period!

ErinAndrewsStopCallingMe says:May 20, 2014 1:27 PM

I don’t care that these guys make tons more money than me, their bosses are trying to make them work the equivalent to overtime, yet this type of “overtime” can seriously cause bodily injury. I’m with the players i.e. workers on this one, I won’t watch or attend the games that are eventually added. I would think that any other citizen that has ever been made to work overtime for their boss would feel the same way. Don’t be selfish and just think it’s another game, another day to sit on the couch and drink beer, all to watch someone else entertain you, this is borderline reckless and fans of the NFL should not join in assisting the league hurt its assets.

The beauty of the NFL playoffs versus say the NBA is that only a select few can get in. Right now 37.5% of the teams make the NFL playoffs. If they expand it to 16 teams that jumps to 50%.

It makes no sense to allow 50% of the teams to compete for the championship. That’s dilution at it’s finest.

This is the NFL trying to milk every dollar they can from the fans. From a capitalist perspective, I can’t say I blame them. After all, increasing the bottom line is the primary goal of every business.

But for those watching the product, it isn’t a good thing. The question is how far can the NFL push the envelope in making rule changes/stupid decisions (IE: defenses can’t really play defense, taking away kick off returns, delaying the draft 2 weeks etc.) before the NFL fan finally begins to protest in great enough numbers for it to affect the NFL financially?

Perhaps Mark Cuban is more correct about the NFL than anyone would care to admit.

justintuckrule says:May 20, 2014 2:36 PM

Goodell and his greedball buddies have all but successfully turned Coke into New Coke. Sheep don’t care because they’d rather have New Coke than no coke at all. Well friends….pretty soon they’ll be selling you that white can, black label “cola”.

The league would go back to the great way it once was if EVERY football fan in the nation protested one week of the season. Don’t go to the games, don’t watch on TV, don’t buy merchandise…NOTHING. Protest!!!

10 total playoff games are played before the Superbowl right now each season.

If expanded to 7….the total number of games played goes to 12.

This isn’t hard to understand. TWO GAMES.

What the hell is the NFLPA thinking? Raising a ruckus over TWO GAMES?

Not two regular season weeks for ALL teams, but two single solitary games, PLAYOFF games.

You know Playoff games which help some of those players get huge contracts after the season.

Games that can help some teams keep their current coaches, who by extension are more likely to keep more of the players around compared to a new regime who will turnover half the roster by next season.

It’s in the players best interests to add a 7th team

The guy above me is wrong…16 teams won’t make the playoffs, but 14. 14/32 is not 50 percent. Additionally the guy above me is completely wrong in his thinking.

I understand he thinks about it in terms of the NBA. This isn’t the NBA. In the NBA you have 8 teams in each conference, and in the NBA you have one conference which should have 10 or 11 playoff spots, and another which has 5-6 teams which should make the team. But this is completely different then the NFL situation…please take note!

In the NFL teams that are 9-7 or 10-6 miss the playoffs every year. The dilution the guy is talking about is a myth, because the guy above me, doesn’t understand what he is talking about.

In the NFL the 8-8 and dreaded 7-9 teams that make the playoffs DO NOT COME FROM THE WILDCARDS. Get it? Because it makes a huge difference with the NFL expanding playoffs.

In the NFL whether you have 4 or 6 or 7 teams in the playoffs…no matter what, you can get a 8-8, 7-9, hell even a 6-10 team can make the playoffs. This can happen again…even if you CUT the playoffs spots down to FOUR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you truly understand the situation you realize that there are quite a few average and good teams that are BETTER then a divisional winner, and THESE ARE WHO WILL GET THE SINGLE ADDITIONAL PLAYOFF SPOT PER CONFERENCE!!!!!!!

This isn’t adding a team at the bottom that is actually at the bottom, this is about adding a team who, many years, will be 1 or 2 wins MORE then a divisional winner, but misses the playoffs, because division winners automatically make the playoffs.

So instead of thinking of it like the NBA, say if the NBA added a 9th team to each conference, it’s more like adding an additional team that might, if records alone made the seed, would be like adding a 3rd or 4th seed to each conference.

That’s not dilution, it’s actually INCREASING the talent that overall is in the playoffs, because you are not adding a bottom feeder mediocre team, but a team that is actually good who because of 4 divisions and 2 wildcard formats is left out of the playoffs.

Again, in the NBA there are 3 divisions in each conference. Which means you get 3 divisional winners and 5 wildcard teams. In the NFL you currently have 4 divisional winners and 2 wildcard teams…which would go to 3.

If you truly understand what Cuban was talking about, you’d realize this situation doesn’t fit the bill. The Cuban remarks to do not hold water here, because an extra playoff team would actually increase competitiveness and not dilute the game.

As for the NBA they need to move to a divisional winner automatically gets in, so 6 automatic berths, and the next 10 at large teams EAST AND WEST get berths. That way you don’t leave someone like the Phoenix Suns out with 48 or 49 wins, and yet a team in the east with 35 wins gets in.

Nor would you allow the Arizona Cardinals here in the NFL miss the playoffs at 10-6, because a divisional winner gets an automatic berth at 9-7 or worse.

This really isn’t hard. They can auction off the rights these additional games, just like they did the Thursday night games to CBS, outside of the regular TV deals, and the NFLPA needs to get the moron out of its thinking, and realize that adding two additional singular games that matter and earn players bigger contracts based on great playoff performances, so on and so forth, makes a great deal of sense all around.

Better for players
Better for coaches
Better for owners
Better for fans

If the NFL does what it usually does.. that is does whatever it wants to do and they expand the playoffs (which I’m wholeheartedly against!!!) they need to at least put in a stipulation that in order for the extra playoff slots to be qualified a team has to be at least .500, otherwise the team they were gonna play gets a bye. Lets not become basketball..

justintuckrule says:May 20, 2014 4:29 PM

Heck with it…..I’m changing my tune here. Let them add 4 more teams. Put games on every night of the week. Throw a team in London. Move tradition-rich teams to bigger markets. Gouge fans for more PSLs. Increase price of Sunday Ticket. Make all tackling below the belt and above the numbers illegal. Don’t let anyone bring anything inside the stadium (not even breastmilk). Suspend players indefinitely for smoking pot. Fine players for having fun touchdown dances. Fine players for wearing different color sneakers that raises money for needy people. What am I missing??

Keep piling it on you greedball idiots!! The quicker that final straw is added the quicker the camel’s back breaks. Hopefully soon, this sorry league will crumble and a new league will proper visionaries will restore it from the ashes!!!!!!!